Playing for Keeps Read Free

force of a pile driver. Raven braced a hand on the wall and drew a ragged breath.
    He’d nearly lost her. This time for good. Forever. Kaput. Finito. No do-overs.
    “But you said she was released. She couldn’t be hurt bad.” He looked at the doctor and ground out the question. “Is she hurt bad?” Had she been moved to another, more specialized facility?
    “No, sir. Other than a mildly sprained wrist and severe insect bites, both Miss Cross and the boy are, miraculously, fine. The child has a broken ankle. Miss Cross carried him to safety.”
    Raven thought for a sec he was going to pass out with relief. A sprained wrist? Only Dani. The woman walked under a magic umbrella. The only screw-up she’d ever made in her life was marrying him. And she’d rectified that mistake PDQ…or was about to.

    The last, the very last thing Danica wanted was to get back on a plane. Fortunately, the hospital doped her to the gills with some very good stuff. When they carried her on board, she immediately fell into a dreamless sleep. She finally woke to find herself in an opulent bedroom, with a woman in a nurse’s uniform sitting beside the bed.
    She blinked but didn’t bother moving. It was all she could do to raise and lower her eyelashes. So far, so good; time to see if she could talk. “Where—” she croaked.
    The woman immediately rose to bring her a glass of water. You are in San Cristóbal, Miss Cross. She placed the straw between Danica’s parched lips.
    Danica frowned as she took small sips of the cool water. The last thing she remembered was some man in a suit looming over the gurney in the ER. She thought he was Raven, and she’d been so happy, so stupidly relieved to see him, and then. . .
    Frowning hurt San Cristóbal? What am I doing back here? Had the crash been a dream? How weird. She always thought Raven would die in the line of duty. How ironic if she died first, instead-in a plane crash. The thing he feared most. Fate had a wicked sense of humor.
    The brain fog lifted and numerous aches and pains made themselves felt all over her body as she began to remember. The terrifying fall from the sky. The little boy in her arms. The hideous screams and groans of the passengers, and the shriek of metal tearing asunder. No dream. All too real.
    Mostly, Danica remembered the vile smell of jet fuel and the sudden realization that she wasn’t dead. Yes, that was what she remembered most.
    Being alive.
    And very, very itchy. The mosquitoes in the Everglades were the size of hummingbirds. Vampire hummingbirds. Her arm itched so badly she just had to move to scratch. It was an effort, but she managed to connect nails with. . .eeew! Her skin was slathered with some disgusting sticky gunk. If it was itch medicine, it was a sad disappointment.
    Had she asked the woman what she was doing back in San Cristóbal when she only left there-how long ago? Frowning gave her a headache, and she drifted back to sleep without having a good scratch or getting any answers.
    They had Danica sequestered on President Palacios’s estate; a lush, fifty-acre, park like setting on the outskirts of San Cristóbal. It took Raven five hours to get past the phalanx of security at the gate, and that was only with U.S. intervention; to keep from killing someone to gain entrance he’d called in a few chits.
    Five hours, only to end up pacing this overblown frigging chichi sitting room on the ground floor for almost an hour before a tall, gaunt man in a well-tailored black suit entered. Six armed guards in crisp navy blue uniforms flanked the guy, who looked like a Disney villain. Raven didn’t give a flying fuck who this guy was or how many gun-toting toy soldiers he had in his wake. His temper climbed with each minute he was forced to wait. If somebody didn’t produce Danica real soon, things were going to get ugly.
    The doctor in Miami bartered Danica’s X-rays in exchange for a shower and a change of clothing for him, for which Raven was